Playing With Shadows
by Wiggy
Summary: The Forbidden Game trilogy is fictional, isn't it? Apparently not, as Lee and her friends are about to discover. So who wrote it? Is it all true? And what will happen when the Shadowmen hear about it? Please R/R!


Well, this is my first ever FG fic! So be gentle on me! Tell me what you think though! I shall be depending on your honest opinions, as I am bad at judging my own work. Should I write more, or should I stop before this becomes a blot upon the LJS fanfiction world? OK, so that was a tad melodramatic. But feel free to stop me if this is crap.  
  
I don't own anything! Nothing! The FG trilogy belongs to LJ Smith and her publishers, of course.  
  
The idea is a strange one. It came from a moment of total and utter weirdness. That is all I have to say on the subject.  
  
REVIEW! I LOVE IT WHEN YOU DO!  
  
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CHAPTER 1: IDEAS AND DISCOVERIES  
  
If, someday, Julian should be reborn, she wished him well.   
  
As Lee read this, the last line of the last book of the Forbidden Game trilogy, she could not resist rolling her coffee coloured eyes in annoyance, though the soppy expression of pure delight that was splashed all over her face betrayed her happiness and contentment. In her opinion, it had been a good ending. As she cast her eyes heavenward, she realised that they were filled with tears, the salty wetness dampening her long dark eyelashes, making them appear even thicker than usual, emphasising their graceful curliness. The wet drops lingered tantalisingly, threatening to spill; yet they hesitated, and she blinked rapidly in order to dispel their embarrassing presence. Finally, with two rough strokes, Lee wiped each eye with her shirt sleeve, smudging the tears away, but the marks they left served as a telling reminder of just how moved she had been by it all. Quietly, she sniffled as she snapped the book shut, enjoying the thwap of the yellowed pages as they collided for the final time.  
  
Why did she get so emotional all the time? It was just a book, after all!  
  
She flipped the book round, prising off the plastic cover which had stuck momentarily to her hands, which made a gentle peeling-off noise as her fingers left the surface. Lee quickly and idly reread the back cover, a small, teasing smile upon her lips.  
  
If you lose, there's the devil to pay...   
  
Ah, but in the end it had been Julian, the misunderstood devil of the tale, who had paid. His own darkness sacrificed to save the light of his life. Jenny. Oh, and the rest of the gang of course. Lee wasn't sure whether she was happy that Tom and her had gotten together in the end. Poor old Julian. Lee supposed it was better all round this way, but then... She mentally shrugged. What did she know?  
  
Placing the book upon her bedside table, Lee leapt from her bed in an athletic and ambitious move. She sailed through the air as graceful as a swan, but that beautiful, elegant second was soon over, and she landed in an ungainly, tangled up heap on the wooden floor, causing the ever-present creaky floorboard to squeal in protest. She felt soreness in a few joints, no doubt due to the impact, but already these trifling hurts were fading. She got to her feet in a slower and much more sensible way, before hurtling out of her beloved bedroom, across the landing and thundering impatiently down the stairs.  
  
Abby was going to be so psyched! She had finally, after months of procrastination, doubts, excuses and skilful evasion, been convinced to read a book by LJ Smith, Abby's role model in life. Though Abigail was Lee's best friend, her only real shortfall was that she was utterly obsessed with this particular teen author. And so, that was why Lee had done her utmost to avoid being 'sucked in' by Abby's little fixation. It had been fun at first, as it had irritated the hell out of Abby, providing weeks of entertainment, but Lee eventually had caved in. Anyone would have, under that amount of pressure. And, to her surprise, the book had been... good.  
  
OK, excellent then, she admitted ruefully. Totally excellent dude.  
  
Lee mentally reminded herself never to use the word 'psyched' again, even in her thoughts, and to stop sounding like a female Keanu Reeves clone. It was just too weird, even a strange little lady like herself. She chuckled to herself as she took the last three steps in a single bound, before casually sauntering down the cream carpeted hallway. Neutral tones were really not Lee's thing, but she had to admit the corridor looked tasteful, mature and quite swanky. Who would have thought that beige would be chic? Well, seeing as Lee's mum was in fact an interior designer, it was to be expected. Telling herself not to waste valuable chatting time, she wandered into the study, where the phone was.  
  
She had built up quite a reputation for being an oddball over the years, at school and at home. And it was richly deserved. Though perhaps not the most outgoing of people, her bizarre sense of humour and her wholly independent, individualistic style in general meant that Lee would always stand out in a crowd. Admittedly, she had fewer friends than most, but it was simply because she was not the type to be 'nice' to everyone in the world, to make forced friendships with people who she didn't want to spend time with. If she liked someone, she'd show it and say it, and if she didn't, she'd do the same.  
  
She went over to the desk and plonked herself in the groovy blue desk chair, which not only swivelled, but had adjustable height control and comfortably soft padding too. She remembered forcing her mum to buy it from Staples, and though her mother had said that it wouldn't go with the study's décor, it had. A small stylistic victory for Lee, but in truth, it was her mum that had won the war over how the house should be decorated in the end. She picked up the cordless device and tapped Abby's phone number in almost without thinking.  
  
After exactly three rings, somebody picked up.  
  
"631 546, Abigail speaking, how may I help?" a sweetly pleasant, obviously affected voice trilled down the phone. It was definitely Abby; but why was she acting so weirdly? It was Lee who was the freak of their group of friends. Abby was the popular one, but nice too, which was surprising. In Lee's experience, those two traits rarely exhibited themselves in the same person. Friendly to everyone, she was loud, sweet and utterly excitable over even the tiniest thing.  
  
"Um, hi. It's Lee here, can I speak to Abby please? Is she in?" Lee asked mischievously, pretending not to realise that it really was her friend on the line.  
  
"LEE! You know it's me! Don't be a dumbass!" Abby exclaimed, reverting to her usual ways.  
  
"Since when do you answer the phone like that?" Lee queried curiously.  
  
"Since I am expecting a call," Abby said evasively. Lee saw through it in an instant. There was a mystery to be solved here. And she could guess just for whom the posh phone voice had been intended for. It was sadly, very much apparent.  
  
"Oh, not that guy, what's-his-name... Tom? Tim? Tom?" Lee suppressed a giggle. She loved winding her friend up.  
  
"Tim!" Abby hollered, correcting the intentional mistake.  
  
"Really? Tim? Oh Abs, not him again..." said Lee with a serious, disappointed frown. "I thought we'd discussed this! He's just such an arrogant, stupid..."  
  
"Lee, we've already agreed to disagree over that topic," she said, interrupting pointedly.  
  
Abby was a sensitive soul. Overly so. She got especially defensive over her new boyfriend, Tim, always making excuses, or justifying his actions and generally being way too forgiving. Lee thought that Tim, or 'the bastard' as she had affectionately nicknamed him much to Abby's disgust, was taking advantage of Abby's generous and warm-heartedly kind nature. But the girl was blinded by love, and she couldn't see his cheating, lying, and mean malice. No matter what Lee said or did, Tim was an angel in Abby's eyes.  
  
"But..."  
  
"What's up?" Abby asked, skilfully and tactfully changing the subject.  
  
Lee had momentarily forgotten just why she had called. It was so easy to get distracted by other issues. She wanted to have yet another talk with Abby, in the vain hope that she would be convinced to see the light, but she was reluctant to shatter the illusion. She did not want to upset her best friend, but the truth had to be told. It would save her a whole lotta future heartache if she just woke up from the dream right now.  
  
"Abby, seriously..."  
  
"Please Lee, just drop it OK?" Abby pleaded. The desperate tone of her voice was enough to stop Lee's enquiries. For now at least. "Just tell me why you're calling."  
  
"I finished the book, that's all I wanted to tell you," she said grudgingly. "You remember, you loaned me The Kill from the FG trilogy."  
  
"NO WAY!" yelled Abby in delight, almost destroying Lee's eardrum and hearing ability in the process. That was a quick and dramatic mood swing. "OF COURSE I remember! Are you for real?"  
  
Lee was glad at least that Abby had been distracted for a while from her evil boyfriend troubles. That Tim was turning out to be as stickily persistent as a bit of gum stuck to a bench. Or even worse, stuck to somebody's hair. That was disgusting. Just as Tim was disgustingly callous.  
  
"Yup, 'tis true my good fellow," she replied sheepishly, half-embarrassed by it all.  
  
She wasn't going to like telling Abby that actually she'd enjoyed the book, and was dying to read the first two, in order to complete the trilogy. Not that Abby would gloat or be unpleasant, as it just wasn't in her nature to purposely do so, but Lee was proud, and loathed being wrong. And she had really missed the mark this time. That made her feel just a bit foolish. As the saying went, pride did come before a fall, and now she would have to eat her words about a thousand times before she would forgive herself for judging the book from it's cover and appearance. That kind of thing was really contemptible in her opinion.  
  
"So, what did you think? I love that book. And the whole Forbidden Games trilogy too! The Kill is one of the better ones. What did you think of Julian? He is just so sexy!" She paused suddenly in her effusive diatribe. "You hated it, didn't you?" she said unhappily.  
  
"Well... No. The complete opposite actually," Lee admitted stiffly.  
  
"Come on Lee, you can do better than that!" she laughed knowingly.  
  
"OK, OK. I liked the book. There! I've said it! Now let us never speak of this again."  
  
"You've got to be kidding me?! We have so much to discuss!"  
  
Lee groaned in exasperation. She should have known this was going to happen! Abby was going to be in full-on LJ Smith mode for the rest of eternity now.  
  
"No we don't. I have to go now," Lee said, frantically trying to get away from the conversation.  
  
"Don't you dare hang up on me Nadia Lee!"  
  
"Abby!" Why did she have to use her full name? Lee hated it. Nadia. Ugh. Sounded like she was some porn star or something. It was far too glamorous for a normal English teen living in - of all places - Rutland. Her hometown was about as exotic as a tin of baked beans. And therefore, her first name had been forever relegated into ancient history. But a certain best friend did unearth it from time to time, when she got angry.  
  
"Sorry," said Abby contritely, and the infuriating thing was, you couldn't get cross with her. She was so innocent and, well, all round angelic that the thought of her being nasty was extremely incongruous. Like the whole Jenny-Tom pairing in the book, actually.  
  
"No worries," muttered Lee, though she didn't really mean it. If it had been anybody else, she would have at the very least hung up on them already.  
  
"I promise I won't speak of it again... but..."  
  
"Always with the big 'but'... Go on then," Lee sighed.  
  
"Tell me your opinions of the book," she said wickedly.  
  
Great. Lee racked her brains for something intelligent and short to say. That was the only way she would ever get rid of her fanatically persistent friend.  
  
"It was a good book. Very good. Interesting," she said. "That do ya?" she added hopefully.  
  
"Give me a bit of credit Lee. That was unacceptable."  
  
"OK... how's this? In my opinion Jenny should not have stuck with Tom, but then, I don't think she would have gone well with Julian either, because in the end they were just too different. Jenny should have been alone, had a fresh start, if you know what I mean."  
  
"And...?"  
  
"Oh, and whilst I was reading, I had this weird idea. It struck me that, y'know, when they carved the thing in the door, well, that made the whole idea seem much more realistic. As if anybody could get into the Shadow World. Like you or me. It gave the impression that maybe if we did the whole thing, we could get into the Shadow World. Made it authentic. It would be cool to try it out sometime, wouldn't it?"  
  
Lee was now no longer talking to Abby, but more thinking aloud to herself.  
  
"Imagine really doing it. Drawing the runes on a door. Carving it out. Staining it with blood. Invoking them... Would it work? Certainly it might be interesting to find out. What if it did work? Imagine going to the Shadow World!"  
  
"Lee?"  
  
"Abby... Oh my God what have I been saying?" Lee was shocked at her lack of sense. Where on earth had that come from? "Sorry for rambling on Abs. I dunno, I suppose my mouth got carried away for a sec. Just ignore everything I've just said. What a load of utter rubbish! Don't you think, Abby?"  
  
"Lee, that was the best idea /ever/! I'm coming over, right now," the other girl exclaimed excitedly. Then the all-too-familiar click was heard.  
  
"ABBY!" Lee shouted down the phone, in a futile effort to stop her. But she had gone.  
  
Lee was shocked that Abby would actually /want/ to try out such a ridiculous thing. How embarrassing would that be? Never, ever would she be made to do it! It was just a book after all.  
  
Running a weary hand through her shoulder-length, frizzy brown hair, Lee slumped in the chair, contemplating it all, running the conversation through her mind again.  
  
Now she'd inadvertently put this idiotic and stupid idea into Abby's head, there would be no removing it. Maybe the best course of action would be to play along, and let the facts speak for themselves.  
  
The Shadow World did not exist, so what was the worst that could happen?  
  
***  
  
Golden eyes burned unseen, hidden by the shadows that they should have illuminated. Eternally vigilant, their fiery depths were so shockingly cold, devoid of light and compassion.  
  
They watched over the girl sitting at the desk, the one with dark eyes, the one in the chair.  
  
They always did.  
  
But the girl's conversation had informed him of something very interesting indeed. A book about the Shadow World?  
  
Well, those humans who had escaped the last time certainly had been busy. You would have thought they would have been more careful. More willing to hide the shadows from unsuspecting innocents like these. Evidently not.  
  
There was only one person he could ask about it all.  
  
Julian.  
  
***  
  
Penny was angry. Actually, that was an understatement. She was disgusted, appalled, shocked, betrayed... Words didn't even begin to describe the turmoil of conflicting negative emotions that bubbled up inside her. Never in a million years would she have ever thought that Sadie would have been so cruel.  
  
Sitting in the living room of her pleasant new house in the suburbs, she looked down at the abomination that lay in her lap, tears filling her pine- green eyes. Its very existence meant danger for her, John, Mack, Autumn, Marcus and Audrey, not to mention Sadie. It meant danger for the whole of Earth.  
  
What if the Shadow Men found out that Sadie had published a book about the Shadow World, and their experiences there?  
  
She buried her golden head in her hands, sobbing quietly. She had thought the nightmare was over at last. The Shadow World was behind them. Things had been normal. Marcus and Audrey had even been thinking about getting married! They'd all remained close, understandably. Despite breaking up with John, Penny still felt linked to him. He was one of her dearest friends now. Her cousin Mack... well, he was virtually unrecognisable. Chatty, witty, sociable... Autumn was the only one who had remained unchanged by the horrifying, eye opening experience. But that was a good thing in Penny's estimation. She was as lovely and delicate as always, with that cheerily light disposition.  
  
Life had been wonderful.  
  
And now this.  
  
How could she? Penny looked at the cover of the book. 'The Forbidden Game' it read. How absolutely sickening. Sadie was making a mockery of the Shadow World, and of the peril there. She was cashing in on it, even!  
  
But that was typical of her. She'd always had the skewed sense of humour. Who'd have thought that Sadie, the girl who hated school so much, would turn out to be a world famous teen author? Well, the Shadow World had changed her too.  
  
The golden band upon her hand, the ring that Julian had given her, it gleamed sun-bright in the darkened room. And the memories, those dreadful suppressed memories came flooding back.  
  
"Julian..." she whispered, half-fearful, yet half-longing, as she stared once more at the cover.  
  
Resolutely, she turned over the page, and began to read, her Nile-green eyes widening in shock.  
  
This could only mean trouble.  
  
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OK, so review, or email me at sixgreenbeans@hotmail.com and tell me if you like it or not!  
  
Please review, even if it is to say 'I hate it' because if you don't how will I know whether it's good or not?  
  
Just a warning though, if there are not many reviews I definitely will not update until my exams are over, which is after June 17th but if lots of people do then I will update.  
  
Thank you for reading.  
  
Bye! 


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